Chapter 1012
“Watch them!” Bastian yelled at the guards, then sprinted out of the room, his lab coat flapping behind him.
The moment the door closed, Liam moved. He grabbed a heavy metal tray of surgical instruments and swung it with all his might at the nearest guard’s head.
The clang rang out like a bell. The guard went down. The second raised his weapon, but Liam was already inside his reach. He drove his knee into the man’s groin and slammed his head into the counter.
It was over in ten seconds. Liam stood panting, his hair wild.
𝖸𝘰𝘶𝗋 ո𝖾𝘹t 𝖿а𝘷o𝘳і𝘵e 𝗋𝗲ad і𝘀 o𝗇 𝗴а𝗹ո𝗼𝘃elѕ.с𝘰𝘮
He rushed to Skye and undid the straps. “We have maybe two minutes before he realizes I lied.”
“You lied?” Skye asked, rubbing her wrists.
“Only way to get him out.” Liam pulled her toward a ventilation grate near the floor. He kicked it open. “Go. This leads to the old coal chute. It comes out near the cliffs. Ethan is waiting there.”
“Ethan is free?”
“He slipped his restraints an hour ago. He signaled me using Morse code on the pipes. He’s at the extraction point. Go.”
Skye crawled into the vent. It was tight, smelling of dust and mold. She looked back. Liam wasn’t following.
“Liam, come on,” she hissed.
“I can’t,” Liam said, standing and straightening his jacket. “If we both go, he’ll hunt us down with drones. I have to stay. I have to stall him.”
“He’ll kill you!”
“He won’t kill his own son,” Liam said, though he didn’t sound sure. “Go, Skye. Alistair needs you.”
He put the grate back in place.
Skye started to crawl. Her shoulder throbbed with every movement. She made it ten feet. Then twenty. Then she heard the door slam open.
“LIAR!” Bastian’s voice was a demonic roar.
Skye froze.
“You used her name!” Bastian screamed. She heard the sound of a fist hitting flesh. A grunt of pain from Liam. “You used your dying mother to trick me!”
“She’s not dying, she’s already gone!” Liam shouted back. “Let Skye go!”
Another blow. A crash of glass.
“Where is she?” Bastian demanded. “Tell me or I’ll break your fingers one by one.”
Skye lay still in the dark. She could keep crawling. She could get to Ethan. She could find Alistair. She could be free.
But she remembered Liam pinning Alistair to save his life. She remembered him holding her hand through the entire night. She remembered the look in his eyes when he said he did it for her.
She couldn’t leave him. Not like this. Not to this monster.
Skye cursed under her breath. “Damn it.”
She shuffled backward and kicked the grate open from the inside.
Liam was on the floor, bleeding from the nose. Bastian stood over him with a heavy metal microscope raised high.
“Hey!” Skye shouted.
Bastian turned, the microscope still hovering in the air. He looked stunned to see her.
Skye climbed out of the vent and dusted off her knees. She stood tall, despite the fear churning in her gut.
“Put it down,” she said. “I’m not leaving.”
.